And by being discarded so brutally by Bell, Kirkpatrick was turned into comedic fodder for Internet wisenheimers, who mocked and ridiculed him for being planted into the turf in such an embarrassing manner.

“It’s football!” Kirkpatrick said of the play, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Man, c’mon. It’s football. I go out there – if you ask my coach how I played I guarantee you he’ll say I did pretty good, you know what I’m saying? It’s football, man. S— happen. . . .

“Man, hey, it happened man. I embraced it, you know? I gotta make that tackle, but I gotta embrace it, look at what happened, face the facts. This is what happened. If I take it to heart, people gonna see you in the community, this and that, if you take it to heart it brings you distraction because the next week, guess what you gotta be worried about? ‘I don’t want this play to happen again.’

“It’s football. I give my heart. I give my all. If that happened, it happened.”

To Kirkpatrick’s credit, he dutifully acknowledged how bad it looked, taking to Twitter on Monday to indicate as much.

Indeed. Still, it has to sting for Kirkpatrick just a little bit to not only be on the receiving end of such a blow but to also be the target of ridicule over it. Kudos to him for taking it all in stride.